


White

by Claire



Series: You, Me and Him [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Past Steve/Bucky/Peggy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 11:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7047436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claire/pseuds/Claire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He felt like he was surrounded by people who saw the shield, saw the Captain, but never actually saw Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White

Steve felt lost when he first woke up after the ice, everyone he knew and loved gone from his life. (He'd been so grateful when he'd found out Peggy was still alive and he cherished every moment he got to spend with her before he lost her again.)

He'd moved things into the apartment SHIELD gave him, items that made him remember the before times. He'd lie in the bed that felt too large for just him, and think back to the nights when the rest of the space was taken up by Bucky and Peggy. (It's only afterwards that he thinks about Pierce telling him Fury had the apartment bugged. Thinks about walking past various SHIELD agents and wondering which ones had heard him wrap his fingers around his cock. Who had listened in when he'd stroked himself to thoughts of Peggy's mouth, or the memory of sliding into Bucky's body.)

There had been people who spoke to him, who acted friendly towards him, but they weren't friends. He'd felt like he was surrounded by people who saw the shield, saw the Captain, but never actually saw Steve. And then he met Sam.

There was something different about Sam, something that made Steve think of Bucky and Peggy, with the way they were with each other. He'd found himself flirting, testing the waters to see if Sam would respond. It had been easy with Sam, each word, each action coming to Steve with an ease he'd never thought he'd feel again.

And then it had all changed on the bridge, when the Winter Soldier's mask had come off and Steve had found himself staring into his own past, into his own heart.

Even after everything that happened, Steve knows that Bucky's still there, still inside Hydra's asset. Because someone pulled him out of the Potomac, and he knows it was Bucky.

There'd been a warmth inside Steve when he'd realised that Sam was in the hospital when he woke up, that Sam had stayed with him in that room. For a moment all he could think about was that Sam was there, and then it all came washing over him. Bucky. Hydra had fallen and Bucky was out there somewhere. Alone.

When he was out of the hospital, the serum working in his favour and seeing him out within days, Steve hadn't expected Sam to offer to help find Bucky, especially given the fact that the only times Sam had interacted with Bucky so far, the other man had been trying to kill him. But he was more than grateful that Sam offered anyway. Steve knew it wasn't going to be easy, the file Natasha had managed to get confirmed that, but having Sam there made it better.

The first time Steve had read the file, he'd felt sick. Even with vast swathes of it redacted and swiped with masses of black blocking out huge amounts of text, it was easy to read between the lines. Easy to read the horrors that Bucky had gone through, the indoctrination, the mental torture.

That night, he and Sam had stayed up, talking early into the morning, and it makes Steve even more grateful that Sam's here. Because Sam's work at the VA means he's got more experience of soldiers with trauma, which is what Steve thinks they'll find when they finally catch up to Bucky.

He's not wrong.

After everything, they end up in one of Natasha and Clint's safehouses, the rest of the team who had stood with him instead of with Stark scattered to the four winds.

Most of the time, Bucky acts like himself, a dry sense of humour and a sarcastic streak that manages to win Sam over within days. And then there are the moments where he'll stop, just stare into space. Steve takes Sam's lead on how to react, never touching Bucky from behind, never being where Bucky can't see him. He'll stand in front of him, reaching out and touching Bucky's arm. Bucky always snaps out of it in seconds, shaking it off and carrying on like nothing happened. And even though Steve wants to, he doesn't ask. Let him come to you, Sam said.

It makes Steve swing in between being amazingly grateful that Bucky is back with him, and the dark kind of anger that makes him want to destroy Hydra all over again. And he also feels selfish. Because Bucky told him that he remembers. He remembers Steve's mom, and some of the things they did as kids, but he's never mentioned if he remembers wrapping his fingers around Steve's cock, or how Peggy tasted on his lips.

Bucky's never said that he remembers _them_. And Steve has no idea how to ask him.


End file.
